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Ian Bushfield was the first Executive Director for the BC Humanist Association and lived for two years in the UK where he worked on campaigns with Sense About Science. He has a background in physics and non-profit management and grew up in Alberta.

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Board of Directors

I was born and raised in the Yukon. We never lived close to a church, so that was not part of my history but we were taught "Now I lay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake I pray the lord me soul to take." Which was not a comforting before sleep image. When I married we decided that we would attend church as a family mostly, I think, because that was what one did. That did not last long, maybe 2 or 3 years. Gradually I became an agnostic and now I am an atheist. The concept of an all-knowing god simply does not fit my logical mind.I went to Simon Fraser University as an adult and have a degree in Sociology. I worked in Social Services doing individual, group and family counselling; developing new programs and related work. Now I am a volunteer BCHS Chaplain at the Multifaith Centre at Kwantlen University, Richmond campus.Email:
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Vice President - Gord Leslie

I was born in Garden Bay, BC and was raised in a pretty irreligious home. Our family moved around a fair bit in Alberta and BC, so I must have picked up the wanderlust from that. I joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1979 and became an electronics technician. My fifteen years of service in the CAF allowed me to travel from one end of Canada to another, as well as Europe. After the Service I lived on a sailboat for a few years, eventually taking a job as a live-in caretaker at a salmon hatchery.

In 2002 I used Humanist Canada’s list server to find another atheist on the Sunshine Coast. In the summer of that year, Harold Fletcher and I started the SC Secular Humanist Association. It’s still going today. I moved to Surrey in January of 2015 and started working on a humanist group for the South Fraser area.

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Atheist since about age 10, Ullrich was raised by crypto-atheist nominally Lutheran parents. His early favorite writer was Isaac Asimov which led to a life long love of science and rational thinking.He earned a B.Sc in Physics and Computer Science from University of Saskatoon in 1970.He started as application programmer for Canada Wildlife Service, then Wright Engineers and Fluor Daniel. Later Ullrich managed Fluor’s Vancouver Office IT group, worked on developing automated stock trading software as CTO for PairCo and retired in early 2012.

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Member Officer - Kirsten Brawn

When I was 5 or 6 my grandmother dropped me off at Sunday school. I asked her, just before I disembarked her car, "I don't think Jesus existed. How can they prove that he existed?" Her reply was, "well yes he existed, he was a real person." I didn't believe her but went into Sunday school anyway. Always wanting proof, that's kind of the way I am. Now, rather than Church, I spend Sundays with the Humanist group where we learn something new and discuss it to the fullest and if, need be, take action. To me this great group of people is a cathedral of friendships and like minds. I'd not prefer to be anywhere else.

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